


She Can Hear Horrors

by ThatKnightOfHeart



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aranea Is Kind Of Awful, F/M, Fear gas, Hallucinations, Mild Language, Violence, really awful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-06-05 21:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6723325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatKnightOfHeart/pseuds/ThatKnightOfHeart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She began shaking as the tears finally started running down her cheeks. She grabbed her head, pulling at her hair. Nothing was making sense. She backed up, hitting the cold wall behind her. Her eyes flew open as she heard a slight thud of her back hitting the wall, then the sound of a pin on wood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. She Can Hear Horrors

Neither of the two trolls saw the gas before it engulfed them. As soon as it did, however, the quiet Beforus morning was pierced by a series of sharp screams and frantic clatter. White eyes scanned around, searching for an escape. The door had been barred, unnoticed by either. Neither was thinking clearly, or they might have seen the vent in which the fumes had emerged. If they had, they might not have woken up sweating and shaking on opposite sides of the room. The smaller of the two woke first, shaking her head quickly. The room slowly came into focus, but her head pounded so hard she could see stars. She couldn’t remember falling asleep. She couldn’t remember moving away from her matesprit. She couldn’t remember...well...anything to be entirely honest. 

She pushed herself up and looked around, spotting the bone pattern instantly. She tried to stand, only to wobble and fall back again. Her head spun as her hands began shaking. What was going on? She hadn’t felt like this since...Her hand quickly shot to her ear. No blood. She was alright. She hesitantly pulled herself up again, using the wall to steady herself. She leaned against it, the stars fading from her eyes. She looked back over to the still unconscious troll across the room, calling out to him. 

“Kurloz?” She croaked, her voice coming out in rasps. The highblood stirred, but he stayed out none the less. Meulin huffed and shuffled over to him, collapsing at his side. The room began to spin again as she shook his shoulder. He moved, but his figure shifted in and out of focus. Her mind raced, trying to figure out what had happened. Surely they hadn’t just done this. Maybe he broke his stitches and yelled again. She tossed that thought out quickly. He wouldn’t do that. He stitched them together for a reason. If they snapped, or he ripped them, he would have kept her away. Despite her protests of “I’m already deaf, mew can’t hurt me anymore!”, he demanded that she leave if something were to ever happen to those strings. Frankly, she didn’t want to face that situation. 

Kurloz’s face came into view above her’s as her vision cleared. A relieved smile broke out on her face as she scanned his. The paint around his eyes had smeared, grey mixing with black mixing with white. She pushed herself back up, (when did she lay down?) and scrambled for his hand. She mumbled incoherent phrases, trying to collect her thoughts. She grabbed his gloved hand and froze. She expected him to grab her’s in return, moving the other hand to sign to her to tell her everything was okay. She expected him to take her over to tell her everything was okay. She expected him to kiss her nose to tell her everything was okay. 

She didn’t expect the feeling of his fingers wrapped tightly around a pin. 

She ripped her hand away and stood, grabbing at the wall again. He rose quickly to tower over her, flipping the pin rhythmically in his hand. She stepped back as the world steadied around her. _Convenient timing_ , she thought. She shifted her gaze to meet his, but instead of the white irises she had grown so familiar to, she was met with the piercing purple that, up until that point, she had secretly missed. Now she just wished they would go back to normal. Of course, that was the least of her problems. 

“Meulin? Oh, what’s wrong?” His white teeth poked through his lips as he talked, his mouth hardly opening enough for her to see his tongue poke between his lips as he said her name. Her knees shook as she began to scramble backwards. This should not be happening. Where were his stitches? Why was he alive? Was it all just a bad dream? But then, why did he have his pins? He never had his pins. 

“Meulin, it’s me. Calm down.” He grabbed her wrist and tilted his head. She ripped her hand away, green tears threatening to spill over. She began to mumble again, her thoughts racing laps through her head. She began shaking as the tears finally started running down her cheeks. She grabbed her head, pulling at her hair. Nothing was making sense. She backed up, hitting the cold wall behind her. Her eyes flew open as she heard a slight thud of her back hitting the wall, then the sound of a pin on wood. 

Yes, heard. 

She whipped her head up, staring at the maniacal smile that loomed over her. “Kurloz?” His smile widened as she spoke. 

“Meulin? It’s me. Can you hear me?” He reached a hand up to brush a piece of hair away from her face. She flinched slightly and looked down, her mouth falling agape. “Meulin?” 

“Sorry! I-I can...I can hear mew…” She said in a soft voice. Why could she hear him? She shouldn’t be able to hear him. Her eyes flicked around, trying to focus on one thing. Her gaze fell onto the pin, still unsure of why he had a pin. 

Kurloz’s laugh echoed in her ears as he shifted. He stood up straight in front of her, looking down at her small form. “Why are you so scared? Don’t you miss my voice?” She looked up quickly and nodded, her face falling. 

“Of course I do! I just...I don’t know what’s happening…” 

“Really? Or are you lying?” Her eyes widened. 

“No! Why would I be lying?” 

Kurloz smirked. “Because you don’t miss it. You may miss my voice, but you’re quite glad it’s gone.” Meulin waved her hands frantically, shaking her head. She grabbed at his shirt, but he backed away from her. 

“That’s not true-” 

“Oh, Meulin, but it is,” He hissed. He tilted his head and flipped his pin again. “You were glad when I sewed my mouth shut, because that was revenge to you. You couldn’t hear, and I couldn’t speak. That seemed like a fair trade.” Olive tears stained her cheeks as she grabbed at her hair again. 

“Mew’re lying! I don’t think that!” 

“You don’t?! Then what would you do if I just…” He inhaled deeply as she looked up. This wasn’t her Kurloz. This couldn’t be Kurloz. He wouldn’t hurt her, not intentionally anyways. 

His screams mixed with hers as she shot up, her head knocking into Kurloz’s. She was back on the floor, and Kurloz was once again bent over her. She grabbed his face as she shouted apologies, her words slurring again as she was unable to hear them. Kurloz grabbed her waist and scanned her face. Her whole body shook like a leaf as tears added onto the streaks already stained to her cheeks. There was no pin. She was back across the room. Kurloz was here. Kurloz wasn’t hurting her. 

She looked back up at him through blurry eyes and noted his eyes, back in their white state. He looked back at her, his eyebrows drawn with worry. First, he finds her passed out on the other side of the room. Then, when she wakes up, she’s screaming and shouting. She had had nightmares, and he wouldn’t be surprised if she had one. But she had not woke up screaming since the few weeks following...well, the scream. 

Kurloz raised one hand from her waist to move into her line of sight. ‘Meulin. Everything is alright.’ 

Her gaze shifted to his hand, a sigh of relief slipping from her lips. He was signing. She looked back at his face and dropped her gaze to his lips. She was close enough to see the thread that was tearing in some places, and purple scars still formed around it. Overwhelmed, she pulled herself up and pressed her lips to his, making sure that the thread wasn’t an illusion, and that everything was back to normal. As normal as it could get anyways. 

Kurloz tilted his head, now completely confused. He wasn’t complaining about the kiss, he was just curious as to why it happened, now of all times. He pulled back from her slightly, quirking an eyebrow. She blushed and smiled, her gaze dropping. 

“Don’t ask…” she whispered. He kept his gaze on her and shook his head. “Just...don’t ask.” 

From the vent, a pair of blue tinted eyes watched over them. A pen scribbled across a clipboard, notes filling the page of Meulin’s reactions. She noted the scream, the kiss, and how much she was shaking as Kurloz helped her up and out of the now unlocked room. 

“Fear gas...extremely effective on lowbloods, but ineffective on highbloods,” Aranea mumbled to herself. She dotted her sentence and turned away, tapping her pen against the wood. “Good to know.” 


	2. He Can Speak Terrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She deserved it.

The slow breathing from beneath his arm was the only sound that the highblood tried to focus on. He traced patterns along her arm, trying to keep his thoughts from wandering anywhere else. The last thing he needed was to start thinking about anything new. He ran the events of the day back through his head for the thousandth time. He remembered a sickeningly sweet smell entering the room where he and his matesprit had been sitting. He remembered her white eyes glazing over as she screamed. He remembered her grabbing at his arms before going limp. He remembered holding her in fear until she awoke. Most vividly, he remembered the flash of blue in the air vent before it disappeared back into the darkness. 

Meulin jumped in her sleep, causing Kurloz to jump as well. He sighed through his nose and pulled the blanket tighter around the sleeping girl’s shoulders. It took him hours to get her to sleep. Repeated complaints of “He’ll be there!” and “I don’t want to!” finally settled into defiant mumbles before she drifted off. He couldn’t blame her for not wanting to sleep after an experience like that. No doubt she was having a nightmare, but at this point there was nothing he could do about it. There wasn’t any sopor slime in this bubble, and there was no telling how far the next one was. If her repeated nightmares came back because of this, he would have no choice but to go find some. 

‘That damn spider,’ he thought. If he had realized it sooner, he would have pulled her ass from the vent and made her inhale the fear gas herself. He laid his head against the wall and huffed, irritated at himself for not seeing it sooner. How the hell she got ahold of a canister of that he would never be able to understand. He knew about the substance all too well. It only worked once, and after that, the toxins slowly began corrupting the inhalants body. Frequent nightmares, hallucinations, and lapses in time wrecked havoc in their mind. The smell alone should have set something off in his mind, but even then it would have been too late for Meulin. He only wished he could have done something more than watch in horror. 

He didn’t realize he had moved until his boots had been laced and the bedroom door shut softly behind him. He paused in the hallway, looking down at his hands. Where did he think he was going? What did he really think he was going to do? This wasn’t going to solve anything. It’s not like he could kill her. The worst he could do was knock her out, leave her with a few more scars. He glanced at his pins that leaned, unused, against the wall. He shook his head to clear the thoughts running rampant through his head. He continued his march down the hall, out the door, down the front stairs to his hive. Violence wasn’t the answer here, but fear just might be. 

Leaves crunched under his feet as the sun began to peek over the trees. He pulled his collar tighter around his neck and picked up his pace, determined to walk out of this situation without a scratch. Aranea’s hive was only a few minutes away, but it seemed like mere seconds before he approached it, his thoughts still not settling in one place. At one point he was ducking behind a tree to avoid the harsh sunlight, then in a blink of an eye he was leaning against the wall next to her door, his hand hovering over the doorknob. Everything seemed to play in pictures. The handle turning, Aranea’s protests as he walked in, his hand on her throat. 

She sputtered and pulled on his hand. “What the hell, Kurloz?!” she choked out. 

His eyes glowed a deep purple, and soon hers followed. ‘Do you realize what you’ve done?’ he thought, his thoughts finally focusing on one thing. 

Aranea stared at him before letting out a low chuckle. Kurloz blinked, his eyes returning to their white state, and tightened his grip. 

“Your mind tricks won’t work on me, clown.” She smirked despite her struggled breath. Kurloz glared her down before dropping her to the floor. She landed on her knees as coughs racked her body. Kurloz looked around, trying to figure out why he couldn’t control her. He could control everyone, with the exception of Meenah. That fish really was terrifying. 

Eventually Aranea stood, brushing her dress off as she looked Kurloz over. “You really thought you could control me? Me? Of all people?” She smiled and turned on her heel, walking back to her living room. “Someone’s in a pissy mood. Is this about Meulin? I heard she had quite the episode today.” 

Kurloz growled and followed her, deciding he didn’t have much of an option. He couldn’t just walk out now. He had to find some way to cause her pain, physically or mentally. Aranea sat herself comfortably on the couch and patted the spot beside her. Kurloz crossed his arms and stood in front of her. She shrugged with a soft mumble of “Suit yourself.” 

‘Don’t act innocent. It’s quite annoying,’ Kurloz signed, irritated in this moment that he couldn’t speak. Maybe he could scream and deafen her. She really deserved it. But, it was the best he could do for the time being. 

“Innocent? Why, are you accusing me of something?” Aranea mocked shock, placing her hand over her chest to show her disbelief. She held it for a few seconds before breaking into laughter. “I didn’t do a thing to you! I tested out this great little chemical I found, that’s all. She just happened to get in the way.” 

‘Lies.’ His eyes squinted as he stepped closer to her. She held up her hands in a fake surrender, a smirk still planted on her lips. 

“Don’t act like you weren’t curious, too. I know what that gas did to you. It gave you nightmares, right? Terrible, horrendous ones. Ones that would make you scream in terror. Does that sound familiar?” She tilted her head and tapped her chin. Kurloz flinched, but covered it quickly by stepping even closer to her. Aranea laughed. “Don’t act like you don’t want to know what it will do to your precious little kitty-bitch. Do you think she’ll have nightmares? Do you think she’ll scream? I bet she won’t even notice. A scream wouldn’t wake her up. Your scream wouldn’t wake her up anymore. Oh… I guess that isn’t possible anymore is it? Sorry about that. Sore subject?” A laugh escapes her lips, but it’s cut short as her eyes widen at Kurloz’s movement out of the corner of her eye. He moved to the side of her, swiping the silver canister from her end table. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” 

Kurloz held the canister in one hand, his thumb hovering over the pressurized nozzle. Aranea held her hands up in true surrender this time, shaking her head frantically. “Hey! No need to get violent! Let’s take a moment to think about this!” Kurloz smirked and pressed down on the plastic, letting the fumes escape directly into her face. She screamed, only allowing more fumes in. As soon as she realized this, she shut her mouth tightly, but Kurloz knew the damage had already been done. He dropped the metal container at his feet and turned on his heel. He heard her screams of terror as he walked out of the room, but the hive fell eerily silent as he opened the door. ‘Not this time, Serket.’ 

The sun was high in the sky by now, and he was forced to practically run home. Meenah surely would find Aranea soon, and if she didn’t, then she would find out about what had happened sooner or later. As much as he was prepared to face Aranea again, he was hoping for the latter when it came to Meenah. He pushed through his hive door quickly and sighed as the cool air hit his skin. He shed his boots at the door and leaned back against the wall. Paranoid, he subtly locked the door for the first time in sweeps. He sighed again in relief until a voice snapped him back to reality. 

“Purrloz?” He glanced over his shoulder to see a small figure standing at the end of the hallway, robed in an old t-shirt of his and cloaked with their thick comforter. She rubbed her eyes sleepily and tilted her head. “Where have mew been?” 

Kurloz smiled sweetly and walked down the hall to pull her into his arms tightly. She hummed in question, but wrapped her arms around him anyways. He pressed quick kisses into her hair, causing her to look up at him in true confusion. 

“Mew’re scaring me. Where have mew been?” She mumbled, still half-asleep and much too tired to sign. 

‘I went to visit Aranea. She wanted to talk about something she found. Don’t worry.’ He signed slowly, knowing she wouldn’t recognize what he was saying, and surely not remember it tonight. Sure enough, Meulin just shrugged and nodded. 

“Whatefur mew say…” She leaned forward to bury her face in his chest. He chuckled softly and picked the girl up with ease, walking her back into the room. 

‘Don’t worry, Meulin,’ he thought as he shut the door. ‘She won’t hurt you ever again.’ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who remembers when I said I would post every Sunday? Haha...haha... Nope! But I'm working on a super secret project (*Cough* Series *Cough*) that will hopefully be released before the end of the month! Until then, accept the second chapter to this story after... how many months? and a super sincere apology from yours truly. Sorry! But trust me, you'll be seeing a lot more of me. Anywhom, thanks for reading! -M


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